//------------------------------// // 113 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Coming up to the doors they were given a group to report to, they were to be checked out by the Spirit Detective League and Fluttershy walked up to the four figures with her group in tow. At this moment Donna sniffed the air and then stared at the group with wide eyes. “Quick warning, don’t antagonize any of these guys.” Donna was obviously spooked by the four men they came up to; her warning was meant entirely for Bonnie as much as a reminder to herself to not push them too far. The puppy was a master in the matters of detecting danger at least and was taken seriously. “I’m Urameshi Yusuke; we will be performing our inspections on you to determine whether or not you’ll be a problem for the convention. So who’s going first?” They guy in the green suit seemed to be relaxed and not at all disturbed by the five in front of him. “We need a name, species, the contest you’ll be entering and any pertinent information you wish to divulge. You will also need to answer any other questions we ask or deem important.” “I am.” Donna said immediately and padded forward to stand before the four men. “My name is Donnabelle, half angel and demon puppy and familiar to one Soft Echo. I’m participating in the cute contest.” Yusuke nodded and motioned one of the others forward while he looked over the computer. “I am simply Kurama, we actually don’t have any files on you, can you tell us how exactly your existence is possible?” The man with the long red hair seemed kind, but there was a dangerous air about him. “It just is and I’m beginning to think there’s a rule in Nerima about not over thinking things, you guys don’t look local to the ‘Insanity Ward’. I have to ask why the human soul doesn’t mind your presence at all despite the fact that you’re fused into it kitsune?” Despite striking a nerve, the kitsune before Donna didn’t say much else when the short one of the four men decided to step in as the kitsune stepped back looking a bit put off. “I am at peace with myself and what I’ve done, that is all you need to know.” Kurama said calmly despite Donna pointing out the human soul he was fused with as still being active and not overwritten like he had thought. He would personally look into this fact that the puppy told him of later. “When or how were you born and why are you not in the records of the Underworld or Heaven? Also explain to me why I can’t read any of your minds.” The short guy with the smell of a hellfire about him stepped forward. After a moment he finally deigned to give his name. “I am Hiei.” “I was born within this last week as was my partner and happen to be a relatively new soul. Anyway, I am the result of the death of a particular demonic dog that’s had a lot of liaisons with an angel dog. Don’t honestly know how that resulted in me, but I carry some of her memories and a small portion of her soul when she passed on from life.” Looking at the three eyed demon in his two visible eyes Donna didn’t back down at his creepy stare. “I may be weak and you could kill me in but a blink of an eye, but there are many different ways to be strong and even the weakest of beings can still pose a threat if given a chance. So I’m just protecting my family’s privacy from being personally violated.” “She gets a pass from me.” Hiei didn’t have to explain himself as Yusuke nodded, before motioning to the last member of the four. “Hey there I’m Kuwabara Kazuma, why are you entering the cute competition?” Blunt and to the point the muscular guy with the small red pompadour who called himself Kazuma was the least threatening of the four. Considering that he was the only purely human one among them was saying a lot about how strong he was if he could match up to the other three. “I would like to ask why you guys are here in return. A hybrid son of some kind of demon lord, a kitsune who’s fused into a human’s soul and body, an inexorably powerful fire demon born of ice maidens so somebody had to have done something forbidden there and a human with enough spirit power that likely dwarfs half the people coming to this convention. It’s a little oddly overkill for security measures; then again this is Nerima so I can understand the need for it.” They all stared at her flatly after she pointed them out and Donna decided to continue on with the actual information. “I have my reasons. I believe that by being cute and adorable with my companion I will get what I want at the end of the contest.” “Graphic Novels based around romance? Well I’ve heard demons interested in stranger things before, besides you’re not powerful enough to cause too many problems. You’re cleared for the convention.” Yusuke turned to look at Fluttershy and the rest of the group ignoring the blushing Donna. “Next.” “Jookiba Bonnie, I plan to join the Rose Royale martial arts competition. I’m a genetically created being, so I have wild genetics and can’t be termed as a single species.” Bonnie moved forward this time. “Put me down as a mutt if you have to.” “It says here you have a rather extensive criminal history from what we have from the Alien Bureau.” Kurama pulled up the data and showed a mug shot of Bonnie on the screen to the group. “I’m actually kind of jealous of what you’ve managed to steal. That’s quite a lot.” “I’ve been cleared of the charges and haven’t been caught stealing recently. However I will use my abilities freely during the competition. I know some legends of foxes being thieves, so it takes one to know one and I thank you for the compliment to my skills.” Crossing her arms Bonnie coolly looked at the four despite the fact that Donna was wary of them. “I’ve been working on bettering myself despite being genetically programmed to steal for a living.” “Surprisingly, you’re legally cleared for this. You have a passport to be here and were personally seen to by an Atomic Betty. Okay, who’s next?” Yusuke didn’t seem to like the desk job, but he did seem intrigued by the people he was meeting with. This time Foxglove flew up to them and landed on the desk looking about as shy as Fluttershy was feeling as crowds of people were being slowly cleared by the three other groups. “I’m Foxglove, a magical bat from New York in America. My home is in Central Park, in a tree. I intend to sing a song during the convention.” The little bat looked up at the four humans with a shy demeanor and Kazuma kneeled down and tickled her under the chin. Frankly it relieved the tension of having to deal with three powerful demons in her midst. “Ah, isn’t she a cute little thing guys. She reminds me of one of my cats.” Kazuma didn’t seem so scary, but that was because he was a human that Donna had pointed out to Foxglove and humans she could deal with. “Hmmm… are you a part of any organizations or have a set field of magical expertise?” Hiei was a rather spooky looking humanoid demon. He didn’t look like a very happy person, especially with the katana strapped to his waist. “Also if you have mentor, we would like to know right away.” “Yes, I’m reserve member of the Rescue Rangers and sometimes hospital aid in the Rescue Aid Society. I’ve also been taking magic lessons from a small friendly troll name Stanley in Central Park who specializes in healing and life magic, he grows a really nice garden with dancing flowers.” After a few minutes of waiting, Foxglove fidgeted a little when Yusuke turned the screen to the little bat showing he image on it. It also showed the Rescue Rangers and even Stanley. “I’m not very powerful. I can do Speech, increasing my own flying strength or offsetting any weight I’m carrying, some magical detection, minor healing and increasing my echo sight. That’s all the notable abilities that I have aside from the ability to channel magic to do small things.” “You’re all clear ma’am and you do good work, but I have a request. I would like you to eventually introduce me to this Stanley character, his gardening skills are of interest to me.” The seemingly friendly Kurama liked plants and gardening. Given his usual method of attack, that was to be expected as the rose he had behind his ear wasn’t just for show. “We will not hold any of this information for very long if that’s what you’re worried about, just long enough for background checks.” Foxglove gave a sigh of relief and went to wait with Bonnie and Donna as Fluttershy came forward with Soft Echo. Kurama stared at the Rhizome suit Soft Echo was wearing; it didn’t look like he would comment on it at the moment. “I’m Shy Flutter; this is my daughter Soft. We’re magical alien ponies; my daughter is part vampire fruit bat which is why she looks like she does and has fangs. Soft will be taking part in the cute contest.” Once again Fluttershy watched as Soft Echo squeaked cutely and earned softened eyes from all the men, even Hiei looked to have softened for a few seconds before he scowled at the filly. “I’ll be entering the story idea contest.” “You’re cleared already Ambassador ‘Shy’, you’ve got quite a history. We hope you find the convention enjoyable. However we can’t pass your daughter yet since you said she’s part vampire.” Yusuke didn’t bother to question why her daughter was part vampire; he just accepted this after having met ogres in the afterlife. “We need to test her vampirism to see if it’s under control. It doesn’t matter if she isn’t technically a vampire; we still have to test for it. She doesn’t look all too dangerous, so she’ll likely pass and since she’s not giving off an aura of allure we can safely say that she isn’t rigging the cute contest. Hiei, if you will?” Hiei flickered for a second and then he was holding a blood bag, making Fluttershy look at it questioningly. Obviously there hadn’t been a blood bag anywhere near the security setup and that meant that Hiei was ridiculously fast to have grabbed one from somewhere as she didn’t see any at the other security stations that were checking people through. Without prompting he opened the blood bag slightly and held it near Soft Echo’s nose, the filly immediately recoiled, gagged and backed away. “She only sucks on fruit; do you have to test that?” It was just for clarifications sake that Fluttershy asked this. Nodding Hiei closed the bag and disappeared, within seconds he reappeared before Fluttershy holding an apple and he set it down a foot away from Soft Echo who looked at her with big watery eyes. “She won’t take things without permission. Is she allowed to eat it?” “Well she seems to be very well behaved, so I don’t see why not.” As soon as Yusuke gave the go ahead, Soft Echo was on the apple before anyone could blink and sucking merrily at its juices while curled around it. “Are we sure she isn’t using any allure on us, because that right there is ridiculously cute.” A moment passed and Fluttershy noted that they were sending silent signals to each other and had probably been doing so quietly all along, after a moment they all nodded. “You’re daughter is clear to enter the convention, have a fun time and if there’s any trouble don’t be afraid to shout. We can handle all kinds of things.” With the inspection by the Spirit Detective League, Fluttershy was allowed entrance into a wonderland of intrigue. - Fluttershy had the whole convention to write down her story idea; she was given a free pen and notepad to write things down on after visiting the people who were in charge of that event. A ballpoint pen was definitely something Fluttershy wanted to show to Twilight Sparkle, quills and ink wells were a tad messy. Even so she had a small idea of what to write, she needed characters, a goal for the main character and something interesting for the character to do to reach that goal. She would have to submit it within an hour before the convention ended the next day. It didn’t take them long to meet up with Ranma who was signed up for the one on one tournament. She looked slightly roughed up from the last time she was seen. Her explanation was that he had ran into all his would be fiancés all at once as soon as he got back to the Tendo home, apparently there was a misunderstanding that Ranma was hanging out with two tourists of the female persuasion. Ranma had a really rough life and it was the first time that Fluttershy saw her as a girl, why would anyone attack her for just making friends? It seemed like Ranma suffered a lot of continuous cruelty and abuse and then treated it as if it were a normal thing to experience in everyday life. Ranma did well in his tournament and very little had went wrong for him, he was dominating the competition. He had even met the cousin of a friend of his whose name was Hibiki Dan who was just as directionally poor as the rest of the Hibiki family, of which Ranma would later explain easily got lost in a room with one door. Hibiki Dan was the inspiration for a character from a popular series of video games; however he fought nothing like that video game character and was actually quite competent in a fight. The only reason he arrived to the fight on time was because of one the family dogs which actually did have a sense of direction that didn’t somehow cause massive spontaneous jumps around the universe or planet. The announcement for the Rose Royale came up soon after Ranma won the tournament undefeated. Bonnie wanted to win the free for all fight and win the cash prize involved. She however wasn’t alone in entering as several females fantastically familiar with female Ranma got into the large arena. “I think that they think they’re going to find the girls I was spending time with yesterday. They are going to rough them up because I got anywhere near them, it’s like they assumed the girls I met to be martial artists and they will likely go for Bonnie once her name is called. Gee I wonder why that is?” The red headed female Ranma was positively dripping with sarcasm. “What I have to wonder is if Kuno Kodachi got her poisons into the convention. Fluttershy looked at all the girls Ranma pointed out were nuisances in his life. Akane the average looking one with an angry temperament who regularly wails on him for being a pervert, Shampoo the large one with purple hair who kissed him as a girl then attempted to end his life over something rather trivial, Ukyo the least active of the girls trying to get him and Kodachi the crazy looking one with the ribbon who has poisoned him enough times that he’s immune to most of them by now. As a weird twist there was also Shiratori Azusa who was wearing roller skates. Ranma had nothing against Azusa or her mannerisms as she never personally cared about him beyond martial arts figure skating and that was a one off fight, she was a very horrible kleptomaniac though. He doubted she would stay for long after she grabbed something, which she would run off with after naming it. Quite a few females entered the arena and Ranma knew a few of them and what they were good at, then Bonnie entered the arena and there was a priceless collective flabbergasted expressions on the girls that wanted Ranma to love them. They had not even once expected the girls that Ranma was hanging out with to be aliens, since they never bothered to learn what exactly he was hanging out with as they had immediately accused him of doing something wrong upon walking through the door last night. He had made mention of hanging out with another alien named Lum once before and was happy to have made a female friend that had no interest in him whatsoever since that alien was already in love with someone else. “Why don’t you get help for all this?” Fluttershy took a glance at Soft Echo snuggling Donna sitting and watching Bonnie stretch out for the match, Foxglove wasn’t there as she was busy practicing her song. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? No psychologist would come within twenty miles of Nerima.” It was something Ranma couldn’t deal with, having a bunch of girls who thought that they could own him and were basically using the marriage proposals as a way to stake a claim on his person. “Then why don’t you just leave the abusive environment and go somewhere nicer?” Glancing at the arena, Fluttershy saw that things hadn’t started yet so she returned her gaze to the female Ranma. “How would I do that? They’d track me down and find me to haul my ass all the way back here to Japan where the cycle would continue.” A forlorn Ranma really wanted to get away from it all. “You could get abducted by aliens.” It was a good idea to Fluttershy, she knew some ‘aliens’ that could ‘abduct’ Ranma and get him away from this life. “If you can set that up, I’ll take whatever way out I can get. Still can’t believe I blew up a mountain for Akane, I’m tired of the ungrateful people that gravitate around me in my life with Kasumi as an exception to it all.” It was about time for things to start and the quieted down and looked at the large arena being provided for the Rose Royale; an all out anything goes battle. It started a bit quickly in just how fast the weaker girls got knocked out of the competition, the Amazon named Xian Pu who’s named sounded suspiciously like Shampoo went directly after Bonnie and whiffed entirely with her strike. After that no one had any idea where Bonnie went as she disappeared from the fight entirely, but she wasn’t listed as out since someone obviously saw her. The noted speedy demon Hiei was helping referee things since he could keep up with more than one thing at once, he was the only one that actually saw where Bonnie went and said that she was still in it while he was busy pulling injured fighters out of the arena. Soft Echo was looking to where Bonnie was and she was sitting very still while all the girls eliminated each other, she squeaked at her mother’s friend who was playing hid and seek really well. After the number of girls narrowed down to only a few left, that’s when Bonnie came out swinging. It was amazing how well Bonnie dealt with each one of Ranma’s forced marriage proposals. Ukyo was taken down gently with a swift blow to the head, she had tried to throw a spatula or use a sack filled with gunpowder and tempura flakes, but they were missing. It was soon found out that the gunpowder loaded sack would be used against Shampoo at point-blank range with dangerous efficiency by Bonnie, injuring the Amazon enough to put her out of the fight without any permanent damage dealt. Akane, who was already worn out on taking out the weaker girls, was subsequently taken down with a flying kick to the head that was propelled by the same explosion. Kodachi was one of the last few standing. She tried to use her ribbon only to find that it was missing and she saw Azusa running off with it away from the arena, so she tried to switch to the spiked bowling pins and razor edged hula hoop only to find that they were all missing. She was suddenly hit in the with one of her own bowling pins which sent her stumbling a bit, she shook her head and tried to find one of her hidden poison stashes she had on her. She only found out that every weapon she had was missing including all her poisons and she was utterly useless in a fight without her rhythmic gymnastics weapons. Bonnie wasn’t much of a martial artist, but she was the smartest one in the battle and just took the fight to Kodachi who couldn’t defend herself. Anyone who relied on weapons alone was entirely helpless against Bonnie who could just steal them out of the hands of combatants without getting caught. In the end Bonnie won with ruthless tactics. She couldn’t have possibly overpowered all of her opponents, but she could out think anyone who used brawn or pinpoint attacks to win a fight. The only ones who had any idea of when Bonnie had stolen the stuff in the middle of the chaos were Fluttershy, Soft Echo, Hiei and Ranma. “Well the next event should be the singing contest with Foxglove, you were quite amazing out there Bonnie. All the fighting was so scary; I don’t know how you could get into an arena with all those people. They were bigger than you and you had a whole audience watching you’re every movement… well when they could see you that is.” It was a scary thought for Fluttershy to get out there in front of so many people watching you and with so many people that were bigger or stronger than you were. It had been actually fun to watch, though Fluttershy still didn’t condone violence. “As that old crank from the Star Wars movie would say, size matters not in the slightest.” With that Bonnie and Ranma followed Fluttershy over to the concert area and heard several amazing songs. “Then again all my opponents were mentally unarmed, so it was a tad unfair.” When it was finally Foxglove’s turn she marched bravely out in front of the audience with a microphone in wing and cleared her throat, before the music started playing. It sounded particular peppy even if it sounded like someone was having a bad day to start with. Fluttershy lightened up with a smile at Foxglove’s singing, the lyrics made it sound like a party she’d want to be a part of.